Water, water everywhere – but is it enough?

“All this rain is miserable, but it’s great for the garden and the rivers will be fine now!”. I’ve heard that quite a few times this week. The most important thing needed for a healthy river is water – a constant supply of it. Our most important river habitats are our chalk streams, which rely on a constant supply of water from a chalk aquifer. This is the same aquifer which supplies the taps in and around Cambridge, and it’s not in a good way right now. The River Cam this May had the lowest flows for that month since records began in 1949.